Irish War Cry (Order of the Black Swan D.I.T. Book 3)
Page 1
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
EPILOGUE
Irish War Cry
Order of the Black Swan D.I.T. 3
The Department of Interdimensional Trespass
by
Victoria Danann
Copyright © 2017 Victoria Danann
Kindle Edition
Published by 7th House Publishing, Imprint of Andromeda LLC
Read more about this author and upcoming works at VictoriaDanann.com
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About Simon Says
About Finngarick
Preface: AWOL
Chapter One: The Sound of Silence
Chapter Two: The Sovereign’s Bottom Drawer
Chapter Three: The Demon’s Den
Chapter Four: The Wild Bunch
Chapter Five: Sharp Left
Chapter Six: Baby Elephants
Chapter Seven: Made Demons
Chapter Eight: Shivaun
Chapter Nine: Simon Says
Epilogue: Working in the Lab Late One Night
Author’s Notes
Also by Victoria Danann
D.I.T. (Department of Interdimensional Trespass)
Book One
Director Simon Tvelgar is haunted by love that was lost but never fades with time. He thought she was gone forever, but what if…?
“Heart-warming, witty, quirky, a little racy and completely engaging!”
Rosie Storm is about to get the chance to head up a new Black Swan unit, D.I.T. The Department of Interdimensional Trespass.
Twenty years ago Sir Simon was a vampire hunter. He took three month’s bereavement leave to go wild camping in the far north of Scotland following the death of his team leader. He expected solitude and fresh air to clear his mind and heart. He did not expect to fall in love. While wild camping on the stark landscape of the Orkney Islands, she disappeared into the standing stones. She faded into nothingness, a look of panic frozen on her face. As she reached out and silently called his name, he lunged to grab her an instant too late.
Her memory has haunted him every hour since.
Simon channeled his sorrow and loneliness into work until he eventually rose to the most powerful position ever held by an ex Black Swan knight. With tireless dedication, he built a congregation of talented misfits, watching and waiting for the one who could find Sorcha.
D.I.T. (Department of Interdimensional Trespass)
Book Two
• Torn Finngarick despises the phrase ‘bad boy’.
• Sheridan O’Malley is on her way to becoming a Black Swan legend.
• Dublin is about to become a lot less demon-friendly.
“…a very fast-moving tale, twisting and turning like the wildest rollercoaster.” – Night Owl Reviews TOP PICK
When ex vampire hunting knight, Sir Torrent Finngarick, is hired by D.I.T., he’s partnered with one of a pair of near-feral, New Forest elf twins who also happens to be his mate. Unfortunately Sher O’Malley made a pact with her twin when they were children that they would never accept a mate.
After rigorous training with Black-Swan-friendly demons and Black Swan knights emeritus, they’re assigned to Dublin because there’s an interdimensional stream portal somewhere in the vicinity of Trinity College and Temple Bar that’s been causing havoc for centuries.
Just when Sher is succumbing to the inevitable pull of mating, she and Torn chase a trespasser through the portal underneath St. Patrick’s. The wild redheaded beauty catches the demon’s eye. And disappears.
PREFACE
AWOL
From the Memoir of Glendennon Catch
Sovereign Jefferson Unit, Order of the Black Swan
Sir Torrent Finngarick stood in front of my desk looking like he’d just been dealt a mortal wound, but hadn’t yet fallen because his brain hadn’t quite caught up. Gods, I felt bad for the poor devil. Really bad.
He came to me hoping to call in every knight’s ultimate marker. “I gave myself to The Order, risked my life every damn day. Now I need something I can’t live without.” It’s the sort of favor you want to be able to say yes to before the question’s even been asked.
Most of the time that’s entirely possible. The Order is a prime mover in the world, connected financially and politically to every corner of the globe. There’s little that can’t be accomplished when a phone call is placed with precision.
But not this time.
Because the favor Finngarick needed wasn’t of this world. Some fucking demon in another dimension had his girl. And my girl was almost as upset about it as he was.
If you hear a giant vacuum sucking sound, that’s the audio backdrop for how I feel about this situation. There’s not a thing I can do but leave this up to Kellareal and Deliverance and hope they’ve got enough game to set things right.
There’s nothing I hate more than a feeling of powerlessness over an outcome. And that’s where I am right now.
CHAPTER ONE
THE SOUND OF SILENCE
The air felt close around Torn. Pressing. In his mind he was struggling to breathe, but it was an illusion. His lungs were on an operating system independent of conscious thought. They continued to expand and contract regularly, faithful as a blacksmith’s bellows.
He’d never spared a thought as to whether life or death was a choice.
By common standards his life wasn’t great, but that was the hand he’d been dealt and he’d been committed to playing it out for better or worse. So he’d filled his time with Black Swan, women, drinking, and had experimented with drugs a couple of times. Drugs had bizarre effects on elves because of their heightened senses and neuro responses. So those were ‘one offs’. His self-induced haze was mostly whiskey. Irish, to be exact.
It was simple. No need for days or weeks of contemplation or internal debate. If Sheridan was gone, he had no reason to continue.
Before she was taken, he’d reveled in four weeks of unbridled joy like a puppy playing in a field of spring wildflowers. Nothing about his reality had been unchanged. The air was clearer. Food tasted better. Colors were brighter. Sex was… hard to describe. Saying it was better was woefully inadequate. No matter how many years of debauchery he’d clocked, he’d never experienced the ecstatic sensual transcendent pleasure of mutual body, mind, soul connection.
After knowing what joy felt like, it was impossible to un-know it. Sitting on the edge of his bed in the darkness a laugh bubbled up and echoed around the room. It would be just like fate to show him what he was missing and then take it away.
It had been two weeks since Sher had fallen into the hands of a demon. A music demon. Or so he’d been told.
Rosie had offered to give him leave until she returned, but Torn had insisted that he needed work as a distraction.
He said, “I feel like, without work, I might just jump right out of my body.” She noted that he did look twitchy, unable to stay still for a minute. “I know that sounds daft. But ’tis how I’m feelin’.”
“Hang on,” Rosie told him. “I’m working on getting her back.”
The first week Torn shied away from food, taking nourishment in the form of highly caffeinated ‘energy’ drinks whenever he began to feel ‘off’. Since he didn’t seem to be losing either vigor or muscle tone, he wasn’t especially worrie
d about the fact that hunger eluded him. By the end of the second week, he wasn’t even moved to drink lightning-charged liquids. Why would he be? He didn’t think about nourishment, got no satisfaction from it, and didn’t seem to be suffering from the lack of food and drink.
He was consumed by a deep and abiding hunger.
But not for food.
For Sheridan O’Malley.
His attitude toward sleep was the same. It didn’t interest him other than that he wished he could escape into the solace of unawareness it had once offered. Since he wasn’t sleeping, he needed to find ways to fill his time. He dreaded being alone and could not abide silence.
He asked for double shifts monitoring the St. Patrick’s portal and upped the ante by begging to work every day. He was desperate to fill the minutes that seemed to drag on forever with something other than need.
Eventually he drifted into a treaty born of shared misery with his mate’s sister, Shivaun, and they began to form their own relationship. It seemed to give Shy comfort to talk about her twin and their lives growing up in the New Forest and Black on Tarry. That was fine with Torn because, as it happened, it gave him comfort to hear about those things. He and Sher hadn’t been together long enough for him to hear all of her stories.
Being neck deep in the formation of a new Black Swan Unit, there’d been no time for honeymooning. No long lazy hours getting to know each individual freckle and hearing each and every story that made them who they were as individuals.
Torn had barely had a chance to ponder why the Powers That Be would have given someone like Sher a mate like him, before she was gone. From his vantage point she was deserving of nothing less than the finest, bravest, noblest elf in all of Ireland. But while he believed that truly in his heart of hearts, he wasn’t returning the gift.
She was his.
And there was nothing that could get in the way of them being together.
Unless it was some rogue demon plucking her out of transit through the passes, no doubt because of her extraordinary beauty and the air of confidence she wore like custom made, body-fitting armor.
Since she had been taken, he went out of his way to avoid being alone, because his thoughts always turned to his own bad luck and whether or not it had rubbed off on Sher.
CHAPTER TWO
THE SOVEREIGN’S BOTTOM DRAWER
In the bottom drawer of Glen’s desk was a bottle of very special Irish whiskey that he kept on hand for late visits from Ram. When other members of A Team were away, he would stop by for surprisingly deep conversations on metaphysics and philosophy.
Once Glen made the mistake of asking, “Why are you here?”
Ram said, “Who do you think you’re talkin’ to like that? You may have these others fooled into believin’ you’re Sovereign of Jefferson Unit, but to me you’re the dog walker.”
Glen decided that being put in one’s place occasionally was critical in promoting a balanced life and healthy attitude. So he made a point of stopping what he was doing, no matter how busy he was, to have a drink and a talk with the legend himself, whenever Ram came calling at his office door.
On that particular night, Ram noted that Glen looked more troubled than usual.
“Is the catastrophe impendin’ or is it already here?” Ram asked as he leaned back in the armchair across from Glen’s desk.
“What makes you think there’s a catastrophe impending or otherwise?” Glen said.
“Known you since you were a teenage skirt chaser. That means I can read doom and gloom all over your pretty werewolf snout.”
Glen turned the glass around in his hand. “Was that a racial slur?”
Ram snorted. “I have nothin’ against werewolves and ye know it. Why are you dodgin’ the question, Sovereign?”
“You know Sir Finngarick?”
“Oh, aye. I was no’ fond of him after what he pulled at the Battle. I’ve ne’er felt like I could leave my family for my mother’s birthday celebration since. But he did apologize and I had a chance to get to know him a little better durin’ Rosie’s trainin’ camp.” Ram scowled. “Why? Is he up to no good again?”
Glen shook his head. “No. Just the opposite. It turned out that his assigned partner was his mate.”
“Know that. The women like to gossip.” Glen smiled indulgently at that, having figured out somewhere along the way that men were even worse, but didn’t correct the elf who’d been like a foster father. The good kind. “Seemed like a good match.”
“Yeah. Problem is we lost her.”
Ram shook his head slightly looking confused. “What do you mean lost her?”
“They were on assignment in Dublin. She disappeared in the passes. Now Finngarick is about to lose his mind.”
Ram set the glass down on Glen’s desk and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Great Paddy. I can no’ begin to imagine the hel of that. ’Twould be torture.”
“Yeah. Well. Rosie is in a tizzy. Finngarick is close to needing a straightjacket. And there’s not a thing I can do about it.”
“There is. If she’s lost, we can look for her. Just like when Stormy…”
Glen was shaking his head. “Rosie’s granddad and that angel say word is that a demon’s got her.”
Ram, who’d been leaning forward, forearms resting on thighs, sat up straight looking considerably more worried. “What’s that mean?”
“We’re not sure yet. They’re going to try to get her back, but apparently there are protocols.”
“Protocols!”
“I know.”
“Great Paddy.”
“It’s a music demon.”
“A music demon? What the fuck is that?”
Glen waved his hand around. “I’m no expert. I’m just hearing about this and, at this point, you pretty much know what I know. Apparently we’re manipulated through music all the time. By demons.”
Ram looked worried. “Paddy,” he said quietly as he considered that. “No’ metal though?”
“Yeah. Metal, too.” Glen laughed, but then sobered almost instantly. “Thing is,” he looked at his glass and rotated it almost a full turn before speaking again, “it’s not just Finngarick. The sister is almost as beside herself. I guess there’s some mystical kind of bond thing with twins.”
“There is.” Ram nodded. “Elora and I have seen it over and over with our girls. It can be strange enough to weird you out. I can see how the one left behind would be feelin’ crazy as a whirlin’ dervish.”
“What’s a whirling dervish?”
“I do no’ know. But my grandmum was fond of sayin’ it. So even if ’twas no’ a thing, ’tis one now.”
“I’m going to write that down in my log of quotable Ram quotes.”
Ram looked interested. “You keep a log of my sayin’s?”
Glen laughed and shook his head. “No.”
Sir Hawking shrugged that off and stood to leave. “Thanks for the whiskey. I better be gettin’ home to the missus. She’ll be wonderin’ if I have a girlfriend.”
He punctuated that with a wink, but both men knew perfectly well that mated elves define the term monogamous. Elora might be worried about whiskey consumption when he was out of sight. But the last thing she worried about was Rammel being attracted to someone else.
Turning back at the door. “If you change your mind about a search party…”
Glen was nodding before Ram could finish the thought. “You’ll be first call.”
“Okay then.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE DEMON’S DEN
“I brought you food. Why aren’t you eating?”
“No’ hungry.”
“Of course you are. Elves must consume food for fuel. It’s part of the inferiority of your species.” She glared at him. “Oh, sorry. I keep forgetting that you’re sensitive about that.”
“I can no’ be sensitive about somethin’ that is no’ true. I simply think ’tis rude for you to insist on repeatin’ the shite.”
He l
aughed. “You are inferior, but it’s so adorable when your color changes. Kind of chameleon-like.”
“There’s nothin’ chameleon-like about it. I have fair skin…”
“And you anger easily.”
She ignored that. “Chameleons change colors to match the environment. Do you see anythin’ pink in here?”
He smiled. “Just you.”
“Exactly. So I ask you. Would a superior bein’ get somethin’ so simple so wrong?” He shrugged, smiling and completely undeterred. “Annnnnnd, I do no’ anger easily.”
“Seems so to me.”
“Well, it seems you’re wrong about that, too, then.”
He laughed. “I’ll bet your sister is not so much trouble.”
She barked out a laugh. “Oh, demon, you have no idea. I’m a clump of clotted cream compared to Shivaun.”
“Shivaun.” Lyric turned the name over in his mouth like he liked the taste of it. “It’s more musical than Sheridan.”
“So what?”
The question dripped with suspicion and suddenly she was eager to steer the conversation in another direction. It was killing her to be separated from Torn, little by little, every day. But that was preferable to having her sister fall into the hands of the demon. She could have slapped herself for saying Shivaun’s name out loud.
Even if he was astonishingly beautiful with the sexiest voice imaginable and also good at jigsaw puzzles, she was sure his windowless den was not the future Shivaun dreamed about. Although, since they’d promised each other to be celibate and unmated, they’d never allowed themselves to fantasize about lovers. Or, if they had, they’d never shared with each other. Even twins keep some secrets to themselves.
“Eat. I’m trying to take care of you.”
She glared. “I’m no’ a pet, demon.”
He chuckled. “Well, you kind of are, elfess.”